Fantasy Island

Songwriter sings about Put-in-Bay. Drunken revelry
follows.

By Cris Glaser

At his concert in Valley City tonight, Wayne
Faust will sing a bunch of songs he
wrote about party-central Put-in-Bay. The Colorado-based troubadour was a
summertime staple at the island’s Beer Barrel Saloon in the ’90s. His
repertoire consists mostly of satirical songs about the local “Disneyland
for drunks” -- including the crowd favorite “Save the Beer,” which is about
a crew that sets sail with 450 cases of Old Milwaukee. “When the boat starts
going down,” says Faust, “they dump the
captain.”

Faust
has logged more than 5,000 shows throughout the world since he started
performing three decades ago. His sets are packed with songs from his 10 CDs
and stories from his book, Thirty Years Without a Real Job (or How I Made a
Career in the Entertainment Business and Still Had a Life). He also writes
on-the-spot tunes suggested by the audience. “Somebody will yell peanut
butter! Someone else will yell G-strings!,” says
Faust. “Right that second, I come up with little ditties.” Also look
for Sven, a two-foot wooden Viking statue that shares
Faust’s stage. It’s electronically rigged
to strum a guitar to the music. “Of course, everyone in the audience has
been drinking,” laughs Faust, “so they
think he’s really alive.”
www.cherokeehillsgolf.com.